Ask a Geologist

[Orogeny]

I have worked a wee bit with zeolites, mostly some synthetic ones for coating applications.

The pore sizes were desirable and even the cation exchange capacity was of some utility. I've got a patent application in using zeolites in one of our processes.

Cool.

I have never done any optical microscopy on them, but crystallographically they are waaay cool. At one point I bought one of those inorganic compound model sets and built one of the crystals to show around at meetings when I was pushing these for some of our coating applications.

I looked at a sandstone once that had a zeolite cement. Really strange. The zeolite was low birefringence and formed isopachous rims that grew off of the grains and filled intergranular pores completely. It yielded this weird pseudouniaxial cross in every pore.

But I always ended up working with this one:

(Clinoptilolite)

This is what cemented our rock above! Was produced by alteration of neovolcanic lithic grains, mostly volcanic glass shards.

Just as an FYI: don't try to take these materials through TSA in your hand luggage! Ship it.

I left my hammer in my carry on one time. I miss that hammer.

 

[Jazer]

None of this deals with calculating the age of the earth based on lunar recession, which was your original point. This is a thread for curiosity, not argument, so if you want to play the goalpost shifting game, please play it elsewhere.

I was wanting to give you the benefit of the doubt. But I can clearly see you do not know what your talking about when it comes to geological ages. You can not even give someone the time of day. How did you manage to show up on time for your classes at school?

Anyone else want to weigh in on when the moon hit the earth and how that was so meaningless and insignificant as Orogeny seems to think it was.

 

[Naraoia]

The moon didn't hit the earth...

 

[Orogeny]

I was wanting to give you the benefit of the doubt. But I can clearly see you do not know what your talking about when it comes to geological ages. You can not even give someone the time of day. How did you manage to show up on time for your classes at school?

Anyone else want to weigh in on when the moon hit the earth and how that was so meaningless and insignificant as Orogeny seems to think it was.

In your first post within this tangent (here), you invoke lunar recession as a method to date the Earth. I responded quite reasonably to that thought here. In reply, you mock my response and copypasta some stuff about lunar recession that DOESN'T relate to using it as a dating tool, and some stuff about the Theia hypothesis that ALSO doesn't relate to using lunar recession as a dating tool. I point this out and request that you adhere to the objective of this thread, and you respond with this post? SERIOUSLY?

If you would like me to address some aspect of how we date the Earth, ask. If you would like me to address some aspect of the Theia hypothesis, ASK. If you would like me to address any other aspect of geosciences, just ask! But don't come into my thread and express your nonsensical thought train and then insult me when I point out that your nonsensical thought train is a nonsensical thought train.

Now. Clarify your request, make a new request, or kindly vacate the thread.

 

[Assyrian]

Anyone else want to weigh in on when the moon hit the earth and how that was so meaningless and insignificant as Orogeny seems to think it was.

You could start a new thread on the topic, this is 'Ask a Geologist'.

 

[thaumaturgy]

This is what cemented our rock above! Was produced by alteration of neovolcanic lithic grains, mostly volcanic glass shards.

Small world! We were looking at some synthetic zeolites and one supplier came forth with the natural clinoptilolite. We tried it out for our applications but sadly the color (being from a natural deposit) wasn't as bright as we wanted for our coatings.

And as I understood it the deposit this supplier was mining was altered volcanics of some sort.

 

[Jazer]

You could start a new thread on the topic, this is 'Ask a Geologist'.

My question is how do they establish the date for the various geological ages and they blew a fuse.
I did not know I had to throw my watch away before asking any questions.

 

[Cabal]

I was wanting to give you the benefit of the doubt. But I can clearly see you do not know what your talking about when it comes to geological ages. You can not even give someone the time of day. How did you manage to show up on time for your classes at school?

Are you even capable of engaging with a scientist without smearing them? Grow up.

 

[RickG]

My question is how do they establish the date for the various geological ages and they blew a fuse.

Do you mean the geologic Eras, Periods, etc.? Radiometrically. Kent Hovind is the one who blew a fuse.

I did not know I had to throw my watch away before asking any questions.

People still use watches?

 

[Orogeny]

My question is how do they establish the date for the various geological ages

Could you please quote the post where you asked this? I must not have seen it.

 

[Jazer]

Could you please quote the post where you asked this? I must not have seen it.

You mean post number 79? You saw it, but you must not have understood the question. Maybe you did not see the question mark or something. However you slice it and dice it, the question has to do with how do you establish the dates or the time for the geological ages? Was that your answer something about carbon dating?

Originally Posted by Orogeny

Thanks for proving my point. Now, if you've got a question about geosciences that you'd like to have answered, I'll be happy to answer it.
​

POST NUMBER 79: Of course the big question has to do with age. Now to be sure you have unrelated ways to verify the age of the earth. For example we have the receding rate of the moon. We have things like Niagara Falls where we know the erosion rate and we can see how much erosion there is, so we can determine age from that. Still they change this stuff all the time. They just recently changed the age they think the universe is. One thing it all comes down to is an assumption of what is consistent. We do not know for sure that it is all that consistent. So how do we know we can depend on you to give us the right time frame for the various geological ages?

 

[Assyrian]

So it isn't really about geology or the geological evidence for the age of the earth, it is about Creationist arguments against geological age that have nothing to do with geology? Niagara is about geology, but then again it has been addressed. Lunar recession is astrophysics.

 

[Orogeny]

You mean post number 79? You saw it, but you must not have understood the question. Maybe you did not see the question mark or something. However you slice it and dice it, the question has to do with how do you establish the dates or the time for the geological ages? Was that your answer something about carbon dating?

I addressed all the points in post 79 as I understood them. If they weren't addressed to your satisfaction, you should have noted this and clarified the question rather than flying off the handle. I'm not here to be evasive- if I can answer your question I will and if I can't I'll respond like this. Also, nowhere in this thread have I addressed or mentioned carbon dating. See below.

POST NUMBER 79: Of course the big question has to do with age. [snip] So how do we know we can depend on you to give us the right time frame for the various geological ages?

Your wording reads more as a science philosophy question than a technical question. At no point do you lucidly present the question 'How do we determine geological ages?' rather, you ask about the RELIABILITY of geological ages. That is the question I answered. Again, if you don't get the type of answer you were expecting, simply clarify the request.

OK. Now read the final paragraph of post 85. I managed to suss out from the rather broad verbiage of your question that you were headed in the general direction of radiometric dating, which is how we determine absolute ages in deep geologic time. As stated, there is a whole thread dealing with this topic. If you read the thread, there is ample explanation of how radiometric dating is performed and why the techniques are reliable. If you read the thread and have further questions, please post them there and I will respond to the best of my ability. But please respect my request that we exclude radiometric dating from this thread since it has been addressed amply in others.

Jazer, I would really appreciate it if you, me, and other posters in this thread can make an effort to be as civil as possible. There is no reason to argue or be angry in this thread; it is for the discussion of interesting geoscientific topics. The aim of the thread is to further the community's knowledge and enjoyment of geosciences, nothing more, nothing less. I hope we can keep it that way. Thanks for participating.

 

[TemperateSeaIsland]

I had a pastor named Angley, maybe his family was from that part of Wales.

No that's unlikely. Anglesey isn't the native name, Angley is probably Anglo-Saxon or possibly Norse.

 

[Assyrian]

New question. What makes the grains in sedimentary rock stick together?

 

[Orogeny]

New question. What makes the grains in sedimentary rock stick together?

Cement! Refer back to post 23: The sand grains (referred to by nerds [me] as 'framework grains') are the dark, roundish things that dominate the frame. The brighter areas in between are cement. This particular example is cemented by calcite, and all of the pore space that was in the sediment when it was deposited has been filled by the cement. However, many, many different minerals can be cements. Quartz, carbonate (calcite, dolomite, etc.), salts (halite, gypsum, anhydrite, etc.), and clays are quite common cements, but cement can take almost any form. Referring back to our picture, we can actually see a couple of different cementation 'events'. The first was most likely an 'early marine' cementation event, common in carbonates. This cementation happens almost as soon as the sediment is deposited, and is represented here by a thin layer of very small, prismatic crystals [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] the edges of the grains themselves. Squint! They're there! They look a bit like this:

The second event is represented by larger, somewhat rounded-looking crystals that fill the remainder of the pore. This event must have happened while the rock was buried deep underground, since the cement fills a fracture that runs ENE across the lower right corner of the picture. Fractures of this type are typically from compaction, which is a result of a heavy (thick) sedimentary overburden.

Sedimentary cements are a chemical precipitate, formed as mineral-rich ground water flows through the pores in the rock.

In the case of rocks made of small, clay sized grains (mudstones and shales, as well as wackestones, which are muddy with dispersed sand-sized grains), cementation takes a back seat to compaction. Muddy rocks can be compacted by up to a factor of ten, and typically have too little pore space for the transmission of ion-bearing waters.

 

[Jazer]

No that's unlikely. Anglesey isn't the native name, Angley is probably Anglo-Saxon or possibly Norse.

I thought I read somewhere that the island was Viking (Norse). Are there Anglo & Saxons there also? Well I suppose there would be now a days. Anyways it gives me a good starting place to do some research. Tks.

 

[Jazer]

I addressed all the points in post 79

I can see this is going no where. Tks anyways.

At no point do you lucidly present the question 'How do we determine geological ages?'

That was the question that you never answered. Sorry I was not "lucid" enough for you.

 

[Orogeny]

I guess I'm not sure what you're looking for, Jazer. Care to elucidate?

 

[Jazer]

I guess I'm not sure what you're looking for, Jazer. Care to elucidate?

How about if we do this the other way around. I will give you the answer and you tell me what the question is. Are you ready? This is the answer:

"geologists have developed a geologic time scale. Relative ages are cross-correlated with numerical ages derived from radioactive isotopes of elements contained in some of the geologic units. Using fossils and radiometric ages, geologists can compare the geologic strata of Montana with the "type section" of Devonian rocks exposed in the Devon area of southern England."

Care to elaborate?